


Twice Again

by i_canz_kill_dragon



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Reality, Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-08
Updated: 2014-09-08
Packaged: 2018-02-16 13:49:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2272110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/i_canz_kill_dragon/pseuds/i_canz_kill_dragon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are two versions to how Bucky died. One involving american hero, Captain America. The other involving Steve Rogers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Twice Again

There are two versions to the story.

***

The first version is the truth. He killed Bucky.

***

The second version is the easy one. He killed Bucky, but not directly, like he did in the first. He is an American hero, a skinny young kid yanked from poverty and catapulted to greatness via a kindly old German doctor. Isn’t that the wish of every lonely young wimp? He’s given a super-soldier serum that makes him big and strong, a living American dream.

In this version, he and Bucky are soldiers in world war two. They fight Nazis, and when that’s too easy, they fight _super_ -nazis; HYDRA, the nazi super-villain division. Everyone looks up to them.

In this version, Captain America (that’s him) kills Bucky when he can’t reach his hand as he dangles off the side of a damaged train. Captain America couldn’t reach him, or maybe he just didn’t try hard enough. He hasn’t kissed Bucky in this version. So Bucky died.

***

The first version has the kiss, which is better. But it also has Steve Rogers, which is worse.

In this version, Steve Rogers is not a hero. He is not a good person. He is a shitty American teenager like so many other thousands of shitty American teenagers.

He is at a party with his best friend Bucky Barnes, sitting around a barely controlled bonfire of tree branches, plastic chairs and diesel with the rest of his loud and drunken classmates. He takes another quick swig of American Honey straight from the bottle, quietly watching the play of the firelight over Bucky’s cheekbones.  

“Hey soldier,” Peggy whispers into his ear, her lips sloppily grazing over the lobe as she lands beside him with a heavy thud. Bucky glares at her.

“Hey Peg,” Steve says.

Bucky stands up and leaves.

***

In the second version, Peggy Carter is probably the best woman Captain America has ever met. Heard of is probably more accurate. He hasn’t met many women, and he’s spoken to even fewer.

Bucky has no problem with her although she doesn’t seem to notice him very often. Bucky tries not to let the wounds to his pride show when she ignores his flirting in favour of talking to Captain America.

But Captain America notices. He and Bucky have a few drinks and laugh about it, and their conversation ends with Bucky professing his loyalty to him forever.

Everything is better in the second version.

***

“Bucky –“ Steve pauses to pick up the bottle and skulls a little.

_Shit fuck._

The world tilts; the fire twins itself, loops, and becomes one fire again. Bucky’s charging away into a distant blur.  

“Wait!” Steve soars to his feet and abandons the bottle, accidentally hurling it toward Peggy, but he ignores her outcry as he charges through the people who stand between him and Bucky like a bull, knocking the German exchange student, Johann Schmidt, to the ground in his haste. In the second version, Johann Schmidt is the evil mastermind behind HYDRA. In this version, he’s just an asshole. Steve doesn’t look to see if he’s alright.

“Come _on_ –“ Steve finally catches up to Bucky, grabbing him by the wrist. “What’s wrong?”

“You know she’s with Howard,” Bucky seeths with what seems to Steve’s drunken brain to be far more anger than the situation warrants, “what are you doing man?”

“Nothing!” Steve insists quickly, “How the hell can I help it if she hits on me?”

“Oh fuck off man you’ve been texting her all day.”

“Have not,” Steve says lamely.

“Who was it then, your mum?” Bucky asks the scorn in his voice making Steve feel defensive. So what if he texted a chick with a boyfriend?  

“Why the fuck do you even care?” he says “you don’t give a fuck about Howard Stark.”

“I don’t – I don’t care –“

“Well then _what is your problem_?!”

“I-“ Bucky crams his hands into pockets and ducks his head, shifting his weight from foot to foot. Steve smirks. Bucky’s got nothing to say. Victory. Now he can just stand here until Bucky apologises and they’ll go back to being best friends again and Steve will go back to watching him in the firelight. He looks pretty there.  

And as though he can see Steve’s picture perfect evening in his mind, Bucky deftly takes a two sentence sledgehammer and smashes it to bits. He just out his chin and says:  “You’re deliberately leading Peggy on, and you don’t even want to be with her. You’re fucking lying to yourself man.”

Steve feels a sudden cold slide from his head to his stomach like freezing rain against a window. Oh god. Bucky was bringing _that_ up. And they’d lasted so long without discussing it.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said quietly.

“That stuff I found on your comput-“

“ _Ssshhh_ ,” Steve hisses urgently. He slaps one hand over Bucky’s mouth, grabs him by the collar with the other and drags him around the corner of the house, into a cramped space between the wall and a large camellia bush.

It is much damper and darker behind the thick shrubbery, but Steve is forced close enough against Bucky that he sees his eyes narrow and a brief smirk flit across his face.

“See?” He said softly, breath landing lightly against Steve’s cheek. “You’re lying right now.”

Cold anxiety dissolves into hot anger as fast as the changing of a traffic light. “I’m not,” he says

“So why are we hiding behind this bush?”

Steve says nothing.

“Man, I get it,” Bucky continues sanctimoniously. “It’s hard, you know, coming out and stuff. I don’t wanna force you –“

“So why are you?” Steve says, his whole body vibrating.

“I’m not –“ Bucky says lifting his hands and dropping them when they smack against the side of the house.

“Yes you are,” Steve says taking a tiny step forward, forcing Bucky so far back into the bush that camellia branches start to overhang his shoulders. “You find, what, a _couple_ of gay things on my computer and just _assume_ I must be gay, like curiosity isn’t a thing that exists, and then what, start throwing me filthy looks when I’m texting a girl? Getting shitty when she hits on me? Fucking lecture me to come out?”

Steve cannot press Bucky any further back but he doesn’t stop moving forward, allowing his anger to propel him until he’s so close to Bucky’s face he can see the perspiration slowly pooling near his temple.

“Seems like you have a pretty big fucking interest in me declaring I’m a big homo.”

Bucky doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t need to; Steve is so close he can feel his breath quickening.

“You know who _I_ think is gay?” Steve said. “I think it’s you. And I think you want me to come out cause you want me.”

Bucky doesn’t deny it. Doesn’t say anything. The music thumps along and the party shrieks and shouts, and James Buchanan Barnes just stands there, mouth hanging open like it had forgotten how to close.

And instead of victory, or even regret, Steve feels the quiet blossoming of honest joy.

Bucky likes him.

Bucky likes him back.

_Fuck it,_ Steve thinks, and crashes his lips against Bucky’s.

For one heart-stopping moment, Bucky simply stands there like a statue. But then his hips are moving forward, his arms were sliding up Steve’s, and his lips were opening up beneath his…

“ _Hah!”_ The shout breaks the moment like a whip crack. Steve turns.

It’s Johann Schmidt. When he’d first arrived, Steve had giggled when he’d heard his name and called him “Johann Shit”. Never has a nickname been moreforetelling.

“Oh no,” Steve blurts, pushing Bucky aside, stumbling out after Schmidt’s gleeful, vindictive face…

And he’s back briefly in the second version, chasing the deranged Red Skull across the floor of the plane he’s planning to fly to the eastern seaboard, injured but knowing he must stop him, there are lives at stake, millions of lives and the Red Skull will kill them all…Peggy….

“HEY! EVERYONE!” Schmidt is shouting but Steve isn’t letting him get away with that.

“No you motherfucker,” he mumbles, and rugby tackles him to the ground from behind.

“Fiiiiiiiiiigggggghhhhhhht!” a student – Steve thinks it’s Dum Dum -shouts gleefully from somewhere near his left foot and then it’s on. Bucky is diving on top of him, trying to pull him up telling him it’s not worth it, Steve is pummelling Schmidt’s face, something warm and wet is splattering onto his knuckles, the kids around them are cheering them on, some spraying them with alcohol in encouragement, and Schmidt is trying to wriggle free, thrashing under Steve like an eel until a wild left foot connects with Steve’s side and Steve pulls back in pained surprise.

Schmidt wriggles out from beneath him and just runs. The kids all give him a wide berth as he runs past – he has no one to help him, nowhere to hide. He sprints flat out for the front gate. Steve shakes an anxious Bucky off his arm and gives chase.

He barrels out the gate in time to see Schmidt rip the door of a car open so hard he nearly tears it off. Lungs grinding, Steve burns down the street to his car, knowing he cannot let Schmidt out of his sight. He will go home, and face aching with the memory of Steve’s fist, he will broadcast the news to the world, using facebook like a nazi megaphone– Steve and Bucky, sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s…

Steve fumbles at the door of his car, desperately patting his jeans for his keys while the tires of Schmidt’s cars screech into gear and the sound of someone running and panting behind him come to a stop. Bucky.

“Steve,” Bucky pants, “don’t –“

Finally, his fingers slip clumsily over his key ring and he nearly tears the pocket off yanking the keys out. “ARE YOU FUCKING CRAZY?!” Bucky screams. “YOU’RE TOO DRUNK TO DRIVE!”

Steve ignores him. Just wrenches the car door open. He knows what this means. Millions of lives in New York.

He’s putting the key into the ignition, preparing to go this last mission alone, but the car door is yanked open with a pop and Bucky is in and buckled before Steve has even finished turning the key.

“Man, let it go,” Bucky says, while Steve shoves the gear stick upward and slams his foot into the clutch. “I think he already gets that blabbing about us is a bad idea, you smashed his fucking face in!”

Steve just presses as hard as he can on the accelerator. He’ll have to take the car to be serviced tomorrow, the damage he’s doing to it tearing it out of his parking spot and up the street, but it’s worth it for now, even though Bucky can’t see. He’s still shouting at him, but Steve has tuned him out now, the only thought in his head a list of possible directions Schmidt could have gone. He can’t see him anymore but he’s still tearing full speed up the long street regardless, through an intersection, through Bucky’ shout of alarm, though a set of traffic ligh-

SMASH

Everything is black.

***

It’s nobler in the second version. Bucky died with honour, defending Steve on a mission for his country. He fought hard, shot accurately and died bravely, a symbol of America on his left arm before he was thrown from the train. A symbol of Steve.

He supposes Bucky was trying to defend Steve in the first version too. But there’s no honour in dying defending Steve from his own selfish stupidity.  

It’s better in the second version. There’s no HYDRA he can blame in the first, no Red Skull to share the guilt with. In the second version, there was a Peggy who cared enough to comfort him. No one was there for the Steve in the first. For the first several hours after waking, all Steve spoke to were police officers. All he felt was their cold stare prophesising years of jail time for what he’d done.

But maybe there is some beauty in that. Something definite and reassuring in a well-deserved punishment for a clear and unequivocally deserved guilt. Here at least there is justice.

Steve cannot see the justice in Bucky falling from a train because of sheer dumb bad luck.  

And maybe it’s better to think that Bucky died because of Steve’s faults. After all, there is a certain logic in Steve’s bad actions leading to bad things. But that Steve should have become Captain America, leading men in war, leading _Bucky_ in war? That Bucky stayed on in that war when he should have gone home, because he believed in Steve? That Bucky should have been on that damn train? All of these things, really, were because Steve was a good person, good enough to be Captain America. And that Steve cannot fathom. Don’t good things lead to good things? Don’t bad things only happen to bad people?

So there’s a comforting logic, really, in the first version that isn’t there in the second. A certain satisfying justice in being Shitty And Incarcerated Steve Rogers not Noble Captain America that almost makes it easier to sleep at night. Maybe it’s this that ultimately makes the first version trump the second.

But really, deep down, when he has to look in the mirror and see the face of Captain America, National Hero and Private Disgrace, he knows that’s isn’t the real reason he created that version, trapped in the ice. That isn’t the real reason it’s a comfort to him.

He never kissed Bucky in the second version.

And Bucky died.


End file.
